"Just look how delicious this is!"
The girls smelt it and cried, "A-ah!" but Mimi shrieked to me to go
away, for fear I should be run over by the wheels.
"Oh, but smell how delicious it is!" I persisted.
III. A NEW POINT OF VIEW
Katenka was with me in the britchka; her lovely head inclined as she
gazed pensively at the roadway. I looked at her in silence and wondered
what had brought the unchildlike expression of sadness to her face which
I now observed for the first time there.
"We shall soon be in Moscow," I said at last. "How large do you suppose
it is?"
"I don't know," she replied.
"Well, but how large do you IMAGINE? As large as Serpukhov?"
"What do you say?"
"Nothing."
Yet the instinctive feeling which enables one person to guess the
thoughts of another and serves as a guiding thread in conversation
soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me;
wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:
"Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your
Grandmamma's?"
"Yes, he said that we should ALL live there."
"ALL live there?"
"Yes, of course. We shall have one half of the upper floor, and you the
other half, and Papa the wing; but we shall all of us dine together with
Grandmamma downstairs."
"But Mamma says that your Grandmamma is so very grave and so easily made
angry?"
"No, she only SEEMS like that at first. She is grave, but not
bad-tempered. On the contrary, she is both kind and cheerful. If you
could only have seen the ball at her house!"
"All the same, I am afraid of her. Besides, who knows whether we--"
Katenka stopped short, and once again became thoughtful.
"What?" I asked with some anxiety.
"Nothing, I only said that--"
"No. You said, 'Who knows whether we--'"
"And YOU said, didn't you, that once there was ever such a ball at
Grandmamma's?"
"Yes. It is a pity you were not there. There were heaps of guests--about
a thousand people, and all of them princes or generals, and there was
music, and I danced--But, Katenka" I broke off, "you are not listening
to me?"
"Oh yes, I am listening. You said that you danced--?"
"Why are you so serious?"
"Well, one cannot ALWAYS be gay."
"But you have changed tremendously since Woloda and I first went
to Moscow. Tell me the truth, now: why are you so odd?" My tone was
resolute.
"AM I so odd?" said Katenka with an animation which showed me that my
question had interested her. "I don't see that I am so at all."
"Well, you are not the same as you were before," I continued. "Once upon
a time any one could see that you were our equal in everything, and that
you loved us like relations, just as we did you; but now you are always
serious, and keep yourself apart from us."
"Oh, not at all."
"But let me finish, please," I interrupted, already conscious of a
slight tickling in my nose--the precursor of the tears which usually
came to my eyes whenever I had to vent any long pent-up feeling. "You
avoid us, and talk to no one but Mimi, as though you had no wish for our
further acquaintance."
"But one cannot always remain the same--one must change a little
sometimes," replied Katenka, who had an inveterate habit of pleading
some such fatalistic necessity whenever she did not know what else to
I recollect that once, when having a quarrel with Lubotshka, who had
called her "a stupid girl," she (Katenka) retorted that EVERYBODY
could not be wise, seeing that a certain number of stupid people was
a necessity in the world. However, on the present occasion, I was not
satisfied that any such inevitable necessity for "changing sometimes"
existed, and asked further:
"WHY is it necessary?"
"Well, you see, we MAY not always go on living together as we are doing
now," said Katenka, colouring slightly, and regarding Philip's back with
a grave expression on her face. "My Mamma was able to live with your
mother because she was her friend; but will a similar arrangement always
suit the Countess, who, they say, is so easily offended? Besides, in
any case, we shall have to separate SOME day. You are rich--you have
Petrovskoe, while we are poor--Mamma has nothing."
"You are rich," "we are poor"--both the words and the ideas which they
connoted seemed to me extremely strange. Hitherto, I had conceived that
only beggars and peasants were poor and could not reconcile in my mind
the idea of poverty and the graceful, charming Katenka. I felt that Mimi
and her daughter ought to live with us ALWAYS and to share everything
that we possessed. Things ought never to be otherwise. Yet, at this
moment, a thousand new thoughts with regard to their lonely position
came crowding into my head, and I felt so remorseful at the notion
that we were rich and they poor, that I coloured up and could not look
Katenka in the face.
"Yet what does it matter," I thought, "that we are well off and they are
not? Why should that necessitate a separation? Why should we not share
in common what we possess?" Yet, I had a feeling that I could not talk
to Katenka on the subject, since a certain practical instinct, opposed
to all logical reasoning, warned me that, right though she possibly was,
I should do wrong to tell her so.
"It is impossible that you should leave us. How could we ever live
apart?"
"Yet what else is there to be done? Certainly I do not WANT to do it;
yet, if it HAS to be done, I know what my plan in life will be."
"Yes, to become an actress! How absurd!" I exclaimed (for I knew that to
enter that profession had always been her favourite dream).
"Oh no. I only used to say that when I was a little girl."
"Well, then? What?"
"To go into a convent and live there. Then I could walk out in a black
dress and velvet cap!" cried Katenka.
Has it ever befallen you, my readers, to become suddenly aware that your
conception of things has altered--as though every object in life
had unexpectedly turned a side towards you of which you had hitherto
remained unaware? Such a species of moral change occurred, as regards
myself, during this journey, and therefore from it I date the beginning
of my boyhood. For the first time in my life, I then envisaged the idea
that we--i.e. our family--were not the only persons in the world; that
not every conceivable interest was centred in ourselves; and that there
existed numbers of people who had nothing in common with us, cared
nothing for us, and even knew nothing of our existence. No doubt I had
known all this before--only I had not known it then as I knew it now; I
had never properly felt or understood it.
Thought merges into conviction through paths of its own, as well as,
sometimes, with great suddenness and by methods wholly different from
those which have brought other intellects to the same conclusion. For me
the conversation with Katenka--striking deeply as it did, and forcing me
to reflect on her future position--constituted such a path. As I gazed
at the towns and villages through which we passed, and in each house of
which lived at least one family like our own, as well as at the women
and children who stared with curiosity at our carriages and then became
lost to sight for ever, and the peasants and workmen who did not even
look at us, much less make us any obeisance, the question arose for the
first time in my thoughts, "Whom else do they care for if not for us?"
And this question was followed by others, such as, "To what end do
they live?" "How do they educate their children?" "Do they teach their
children and let them play? What are their names?" and so forth.
IV. IN MOSCOW
From the time of our arrival in Moscow, the change in my conception of
objects, of persons, and of my connection with them became increasingly
perceptible. When at my first meeting with Grandmamma, I saw her thin,
wrinkled face and faded eyes, the mingled respect and fear with which
she had hitherto inspired me gave place to compassion, and when, laying
her cheek against Lubotshka's head, she sobbed as though she saw before
her the corpse of her beloved daughter, my compassion grew to love.
I felt deeply sorry to see her grief at our meeting, even though I knew
that in ourselves we represented nothing in her eyes, but were dear to
her only as reminders of our mother--that every kiss which she imprinted
upon my cheeks expressed the one thought, "She is no more--she is dead,
and I shall never see her again."
Papa, who took little notice of us here in Moscow, and whose face was
perpetually preoccupied on the rare occasions when he came in his black
dress-coat to take formal dinner with us, lost much in my eyes at this
period, in spite of his turned-up ruffles, robes de chambre, overseers,
bailiffs, expeditions to the estate, and hunting exploits.
Karl Ivanitch--whom Grandmamma always called "Uncle," and who (Heaven
knows why!) had taken it into his head to adorn the bald pate of my
childhood's days with a red wig parted in the middle--now looked to me
so strange and ridiculous that I wondered how I could ever have failed
to observe the fact before. Even between the girls and ourselves there
seemed to have sprung up an invisible barrier. They, too, began to have
secrets among themselves, as well as to evince a desire to show off
their ever-lengthening skirts even as we boys did our trousers and
ankle-straps. As for Mimi, she appeared at luncheon, the first Sunday,
in such a gorgeous dress and with so many ribbons in her cap that it was
clear that we were no longer en campagne, and that everything was now
going to be different.
V. MY ELDER BROTHER
I was only a year and some odd months younger than Woloda, and from the
first we had grown up and studied and played together. Hitherto, the
difference between elder and younger brother had never been felt between
us, but at the period of which I am speaking, I began to have a
notion that I was not Woloda's equal either in years, in tastes, or in
capabilities. I even began to fancy that Woloda himself was aware of
his superiority and that he was proud of it, and, though, perhaps, I
was wrong, the idea wounded my conceit--already suffering from frequent
comparison with him. He was my superior in everything--in games, in
studies, in quarrels, and in deportment. All this brought about an
estrangement between us and occasioned me moral sufferings which I had
never hitherto experienced.
When for the first time Woloda wore Dutch pleated shirts, I at once said
that I was greatly put out at not being given similar ones, and each
time that he arranged his collar, I felt that he was doing so on purpose
to offend me. But, what tormented me most of all was the idea that
Woloda could see through me, yet did not choose to show it.
Who has not known those secret, wordless communications which spring
from some barely perceptible smile or movement--from a casual glance
between two persons who live as constantly together as do brothers,
friends, man and wife, or master and servant--particularly if those
two persons do not in all things cultivate mutual frankness? How many
half-expressed wishes, thoughts, and meanings which one shrinks from
revealing are made plain by a single accidental glance which timidly and
irresolutely meets the eye!
However, in my own case I may have been deceived by my excessive
capacity for, and love of, analysis. Possibly Woloda did not feel at
all as I did. Passionate and frank, but unstable in his likings, he was
attracted by the most diverse things, and always surrendered himself
wholly to such attraction. For instance, he suddenly conceived a passion
for pictures, spent all his money on their purchase, begged Papa,
Grandmamma, and his drawing master to add to their number, and applied
himself with enthusiasm to art. Next came a sudden rage for curios, with
which he covered his table, and for which he ransacked the whole house.
Following upon that, he took to violent novel-reading--procuring such
works by stealth, and devouring them day and night. Involuntarily I was
influenced by his whims, for, though too proud to imitate him, I was
also too young and too lacking in independence to choose my own way.
Above all, I envied Woloda his happy, nobly frank character, which
showed itself most strikingly when we quarrelled. I always felt that
he was in the right, yet could not imitate him. For instance, on one
occasion when his passion for curios was at its height, I went to his
table and accidentally broke an empty many-coloured smelling-bottle.
"Who gave you leave to touch my things?" asked Woloda, chancing to enter
the room at that moment and at once perceiving the disorder which I had
occasioned in the orderly arrangement of the treasures on his table.
"And where is that smelling bottle? Perhaps you--?"
"I let it fall, and it smashed to pieces; but what does that matter?"
"Well, please do me the favour never to DARE to touch my things again,"
he said as he gathered up the broken fragments and looked at them
vexedly.
"And will YOU please do me the favour never to ORDER me to do anything
whatever," I retorted. "When a thing's broken, it's broken, and there is
no more to be said." Then I smiled, though I hardly felt like smiling.
"Oh, it may mean nothing to you, but to me it means a good deal," said
Woloda, shrugging his shoulders (a habit he had caught from Papa).
"First of all you go and break my things, and then you laugh. What a
nuisance a little boy can be!"
"LITTLE boy, indeed? Then YOU, I suppose, are a man, and ever so wise?"
"I do not intend to quarrel with you," said Woloda, giving me a slight
push. "Go away."
"Don't you push me!"
"Go away."
"I say again--don't you push me!"
Woloda took me by the hand and tried to drag me away from the table, but
I was excited to the last degree, and gave the table such a push
with
my foot that I upset the whole concern, and brought china and crystal
ornaments and everything else with a crash to the floor.
"You disgusting little brute!" exclaimed Woloda, trying to save some of
his falling treasures.
"At last all is over between us," I thought to myself as I strode from
the room. "We are separated now for ever."
It was not until evening that we again exchanged a word. Yet I felt
guilty, and was afraid to look at him, and remained at a loose end all
day.
Woloda, on the contrary, did his lessons as diligently as ever, and
passed the time after luncheon in talking and laughing with the girls.
As soon, again, as afternoon lessons were over I left the room, for
it would have been terribly embarrassing for me to be alone with my
brother. When, too, the evening class in history was ended I took my
notebook and moved towards the door. Just as I passed Woloda, I pouted
and pulled an angry face, though in reality I should have liked to have
made my peace with him. At the same moment he lifted his head, and with
a barely perceptible and good-humouredly satirical smile looked me full
in the face. Our eyes met, and I saw that he understood me, while he,
for his part, saw that I knew that he understood me; yet a feeling
stronger than myself obliged me to turn away from him.
"Nicolinka," he said in a perfectly simple and anything but